Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The preceding essay has caused me to consider the possibility that the life of Abraham as recounted in Genesis contains a typological prophecy of the history of Israel; that is, that the events in Abraham’s life broadly anticipate events in Israel’s history. This kind of pattern is seen in the…
by: Jeff Meyers and James Jordan In the fifth chapter of John’s gospel we read of a man who had been ill for 38 years and who was lying by a pool located by the Sheep Gate of Jerusalem. This sheep waited, as did many other infirm people, for an…
What had been reduced to ruin by this sex, would by the selfsame sex be recovered to salvation. As Eve believed the serpent, so Mary believed the angel. The delinquency which the one occasioned by believing, the other by believing effaced. —Tertullian What is Paul saying about women and salvation…
Back in Biblical Horizons 132 I discussed the horrible abuse of the converted men of Salem/Shechem in Genesis 34. These Hivites had joined the covenant by circumcision and then were slaughtered by Simeon and Levi. That, however, is not the end of their story. In Joshua 9 we find the…
Genesis 14:14 says that Abram mustered his trained men, “born in his house,” to rescue Lot, and gives their number as 318. It is clear that the precise number is provided for some reason, but what is it? S. Gevirtz notes that 318 is the sum of all the prime…
Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three; and although there were so many, the net was not torn. (John 21:11) This is one of those texts in the Bible that many people puzzle over. It is not a puzzle…
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H earing the hearing of Solomon ( shema is both verb and object in 2 Chronicles 9:1), Queen Sheba visits Israel's king with an impressive retinue (“very glorious strength”). She discloses everything that is on her heart. Solomon has a “hearing heart” (1 Kings 3:9), ready to receive others' words.…
L ife, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy says, is suffering, battle, pain, shock, failure, elation. Human beings are always torn, always riven. Much of human life, individually and collectively, is an effort to deal with suffering and death. By being the first Man, Jesus establishes the possibility of a different stance toward suffering…
S econd Chronicles 8:11 (NASB) reads: “Then Solomon brought Pharaoh's daughter up from the city of David to the house which he had built for her; for he said, ‘My wife shall not dwell in the house of David king of Israel because the places are holy where the ark…
T he Beginning of Politics by Moshe Habertal and Stephen Holmes is a study of politics in the book of Samuel. Unlike other commentators, they don't believe that the author is a partisan, either of a pro- or an anti-David faction. That line of interpretation “can distract from the book's…
“T here is a fundamental difference,” John Milbank writes ( Future of Love ), “between the Biblical and the Greek attitude to labor. The latter supposes that the gods have hidden from human beings the sources of abundant provision, and that these must be sought out by cunning, Promethean labor.”…
I n his commentary on Chronicles , Mark Boda notes that joy is a key theme in Chronicles. Commenting on 2 Chronicles 7:10, he observes that “proper attention to worship legislation is not seen as dutiful drudgery, but rather joyous celebration” (271). The passages he cites fill out the role…
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